Travels Without a Camera

First of all a postscript to yesterday. The Red-throated Diver is still on the Marine Lakes, but unfortunately the Manxie died and is now safely frozen in Ian's freezer!

 Red-throated Diver

The rain eventually stopped shortly after lunch and I headed off to the Moss for a wander round. No camera with me today, so no pictures of anything seen this afternoon. There was a steady stream of Swallows heading in to the SSW wind and in total I had probably somewhere in the region of a thousand head south in the hour and quarter that I walked round.

 Swallow

I had 50 Goldfinch and 9 Linnets on my walk, but these weren't birds on 'vis', rather birds feeding in a weedy field. In fact the only vis I had were the Swallows with a few House Martins and a single Meadow Pipit. I had a few raptors this afternoon in the form of Kestrel, Peregrine, Buzzard and Sparrowhawk. The Peg caused uproar amongst the Gulls as they all left the flood they were bathing in en masse to see it off.


There were good numbers of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies around and they were all recently emerged immaculate specimens. I also had a few Small Whites and in the plantation 3 or 4 Speckled Woods. The only grounded migrants I had as such were 2 Whitethroats along a newly planted hedge that is now just starting to resemble a hedge.

The forecast isn't brilliant for the weekend with tomorrow the only chance for a few migrants and its back to seabirds on Sunday. The charts look interesting for Monday with a rapidly moving deep depression heading across the Atlantic. It looks good for a few seabirds and surely a yank or two in the right location. How about a.......

Common Yellowthroat

or a..........

Nashville Warbler

or maybe even a.............

 Tree Swallow

I think I'll leave it at that!